Dick Weiss on College Basketball
PHILADELPHIA– The bottom dropped out on DePaul basketball yesterday.
AD DeWayne Peevy fired head coach Tony Stubblefield midway through a third consecutive losing season The announcement came on the heels of a 74–61 loss to Butler,
that pushed the Blue Demons down to a 2-15 overall record and 0-7 in the Big East. All but one of their conference losses has come by less than 14 points.
“After evaluating the current state of our men’s basketball program, a decision was made to make a change in the head coaching position,” Peevy said.
Special assistant Matt Brady will serve as interim coach as the Chicago school begins its search for a new coach.
Stubblefield came to DePaul after establishing himself as an elite recruiter at Oregon over 10 years, but never was able to stabilize a Chicago program that has
not had a winning record since 2019 and has finished last in the Big East for 12 of the last 16 seasons since joining the league in 2005 despite a fertile recruiting landscape in the city. The school has gone through five coaching changes since its last NCAA appearance in 2004. The Demons’ NCAA drought is the longest among power conference programs. Only Washington State and Boston College haven’t made it in more than a decade.
Stubblefield coached the Demons to a 9-1 record to start his first season but finished 15-16 in 2022 and 10-23 last season. The Blue Demons have dropped 20 of 21 games against Big East opponents counting the league tournament since beating then-No. 8 Xavier Jan. 18, 2023.
DePaul has not been to an NCAA tournament for 18 seasons, a huge fall for a program that was made the Final Four in 1979 and was ranked No. 1 in the country in 1981 when the late Ray Meyer was the coach and had future NBA stars Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings– two prospects from the Chicago Public League– on the roster.
But times have changed.
DePaul lost 10 players from last season’s roster due to graduation and the transfer portal, which includes four starters in Nick Ongenda, Javan Johnson, Umoja Gibson and Eral Penn.
The biggest surprise was the team losing four-star recruit Zion Cruz to the transfer portal in September. Just a year ago, Cruz was viewed as the next great Blue Demon and potential star but is now enrolled at Pratt Community College in Kansas.
They have been overshadowed in the city in recent seasons by Loyola-Chicago, another Catholic school on the city’s North Side. The Ramblers made the Final Four in 2018, reached the Sweet 16 in 2021 and played in the NCAA in 2022. Porter Moser, who coached that team during those first two magical runs, was available when the school fired Dave Leitao in 2021, but never got an interview. He wound up taking the Oklahoma job.
Peevy to his credit and fueled fundraising efforts for a new practice facility and DePaul now plays its home games in upgraded Wintrust Arena on McCormick Square.
But aside from the record, DePaul’s biggest problem during the Stubblefield era was holding onto key players. The school has a limited NIL treasury. The school desperately needs a new coach who can rally the fanbase through this ongoing crisis. Among the names mentioned are former Marquette, Indiana and Georgia coach Tom Crean and Grand Canyon coach Bryce Drew.
Peevy understands the urgency of rebuilding the program. “Our generation knows the brand,” he said.”But if we don’t hurry up and take advantage of that, there will be no generation who has seen that success.”
